The boy prisoners of Guantanamo

The inmates of Iguana House are well fed and studying English, but they have no lawyer. Caroline Overington reports from Cuba.

Iguana House, a cream-brick bungalow, stands apart from the cells that hold former Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters.

The Cuban villa has a lounge, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom and the usual detritus associated with adolescent inhabitants. The occupants are three youths who human rights groups say should not be here.

There is a sofa, plus two armchairs, and a television for videos, including Castaway. The dining table is littered with board games, including an American favourite called Get Into Trouble!

From the look of the shoes under a bed, one has size-nine feet. The youngster themselves were not in view when US guards led journalists through.

A three-metre cyclone fence has been built around the house, which is also screened by green mesh. Unlike the adult camp, there are no guard towers, no barbed wire, and soldiers have cut a large hole in the green screen so you can see the sea.");document.write("

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"That really fascinates them," said David Wodushek, 35, a US soldier who helps guard the three. "They had never seen the sea before."

Early this year, the three were brought to the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay. Almost immediately it became clear that they were not men but boys.

"They were kind of small, and not that well developed," said Lieutenant-Colonel Barry Johnson, of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay.

Colonel Johnson said the boys were separated and doctors "did bone density tests and other medical tests, and when the results came back, we concluded that all were somewhere between 13 and 16 years of age".

The US says the three boys were detained during fighting in Afghanistan and are therefore "juvenile enemy combatants" - not child prisoners of war. It also determined that, just like the adult prisoners at Camp Delta, they would be held indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay, without access to lawyers.

When news leaked to the media last month, it sparked outrage among human rights groups, who described their detention as repugnant.

Stung by the criticism, the US assured the international community that the boys were being treated humanely and last week The Age was invited to join a media tour.

The military says the boys are allowed to exercise in the yard two hours a day. Colonel Johnson said they were taught English, reading, writing and maths and a Muslim cleric had visited. He said the guards had experience with juveniles.

Mr Wodushek said: "We've had no discipline problems. We have not developed personal relationships, since that is not appropriate, but there is some respect between us."

So far the US has refused to reveal the identities of the boys, but Canadian media have reported that one could be 16-year-old Omar Khadr, the Toronto-born son of an Eygptian-born Canadian citizen who allegedly underwent training at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. The boy has been in US custody since last July.

In an interview with The Age, the deputy commander of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay, General James Payne, said it was unfortunate that juveniles had become involved in the war on terror, "but it's also an unfortunate fact that some groups do use children as soldiers".

General Payne said the boys had arrived "malnourished, and in a state of poor health. Since then, they've been receiving excellent medical care and three meals a day. Now I can say they are in super shape. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say, this is the best care they have ever received.

"Don't look only at the detention side of it. When they came in, two of them were illiterate and one was reading at a very, very basic level. Now they are all reading at the third-grade level. I would say this is a success story."

Human rights groups disagree. Since the US has classified the boys "enemy combatants", they have been denied access to lawyers and they have no way of knowing whether they will be released.

In a statement earlier this month, Amnesty International spokesman Alistair Hodgett said that holding the juveniles was repugnant and "contrary to the basic principles of human rights".

He said the US was violating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that "every child deprived of his or her liberty shall have the right to prompt access to legal and other appropriate assistance".